China moon discovery
Author: m | 2025-04-24
China's New Moon Discovery Leaves the U.S. Stunned and Rewrites History - China's New Moon Discovery Leaves the U.S. Stunned and Rewrites History by Voyager 91
China’s Shocking Discovery on the Moon Leaves Scientists
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese scientists have discovered a "brand-new method" of producing large quantities of water using lunar soil brought back from a 2020 expedition, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Thursday.In 2020, China's Chang'e-5 mission marked the first time humans retrieved lunar samples in 44 years. Researchers from the state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences discovered that the minerals in this 'moon soil' contain large amounts of hydrogen, which reacts with other elements when heated to very high temperatures, producing water vapour, CCTV reported."After three years of in-depth research and repeated verification, a brand-new method of using lunar soil to produce large amounts of water was discovered, which is expected to provide important design basis for the construction of future lunar scientific research stations and space stations," said CCTV.The discovery could have important implications for China's decades-long project of building a permanent lunar outpost amid a U.S.-China race to find and mine the moon's resources.NASA head Bill Nelson has repeatedly raised the alarm about the rapid advances in China's space programme and the possibility of Beijing dominating the most resource-rich locations on the moon.Using the new method, one tonne of lunar soil will be able to produce about 51-76 kg of water, equivalent to more than a hundred 500ml bottles of water, or the daily drinking water consumption of 50 people, the state broadcaster said.China hopes that recent and future lunar expeditions will set the foundations to build the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), an initiative it is co-leading with Russia.China's space agency has set 2035 as the date by when a "basic station" on the moon's south pole will be built, with a moon-orbiting space station added by 2045.The announcement of the discovery comes at a time when Chinese scientists are already conducting experiments on lunar samples brought back in June by the Chang'e-6 mission.While the Chang'e-5 mission brought back samples from the near side of the moon, Chang'e-6 retrieved lunar soil from the far side of the moon, which perpetually faces away from the Earth.The importance of lunar water goes beyond making permanent human presence viable. NASA's Nelson told
China claims discovery of a new mineral on the moon for the first
It also found that there were a lot more holes on its backside, too. Sticky IckyLess than a week after it uncovered the hilariously anticlimactic origins of the "Moon Cube", China’s announcing a new discovery from its lunar rover: the backside of the Moon is surprisingly sticky.Chinese researchers published a paper this week in Science Robotics that revealed new data about the lunar surface gathered by the Yutu-2 rover. The takeaway? The lunar regolith — soil, basically — on the Moon’s far side, which always faces away from the Earth, is stickier than the soil on the visible near side. The team reached the finding after noticing that chunks of lunar soil kept sticking to the rover’s wheels. They believe this might be because the surface on the far side "resembles dry sand and sandy loam on Earth," according to the paper. Holier Than ThouThe researchers also discovered that the far side had a lot of relatively small craters. The report included data gathered from 88 craters, with 57 measuring less than 33 feet in diameter and two craters measuring roughly 200 feet in diameter. At the same time, the far side of the Moon features many more craters than the near side. That's likely due to a number of factors, including that the Earth helps shield the lunar surface from certain impacts. Also, the nearside appears to have had a lot more volcanic activity in its past that got rid of many craters. In fact, China’s recent Chang’e-5 mission uncovered relatively recent volcanic activity on the lunar surface — although it still occurred roughly two billion years ago. It’s undoubtedly awesome that lunar missions are still uncovering new and surprising data about the Moon — mysterious cube shaped objects aside. It only creates even more hype for future exploration like NASA's Artemis missions.READ MORE: The Moon’s Far Side Is Covered in Sticky Soil and Fresh Craters [Gizmodo]More on the Moon: Remember the “Moon Cube”? China Just Published a New Photo and UhhhhhChina announces discovery of new mineral on moon - Anadolu
Epimetheus is an inner satellite of Saturn. It is also known as Saturn XI. It is named after the mythological Epimetheus, brother of Prometheus.EpimetheusEpimetheus occupies essentially the same orbit as the moon Janus. Astronomers originally assumed that there was only one body in that orbit, disbelieving that two moons could share nearly identical orbits without eventually colliding.[7] Thus, there was difficulty in determining their orbital characteristics. Observations were photographic and spaced widely apart in time, so that while the presence of two objects was obvious, the observations were difficult to reconcile with a reasonable orbit.[8]Audouin Dollfus observed a moon on 15 December 1966,[9] which he proposed to be named "Janus".[10] On 18 December, Richard Walker made a similar observation which is now credited as the discovery of Epimetheus.[11] However, at the time, it was believed that there was only one moon, unofficially known as "Janus", in the given orbit.[7]Twelve years later, in October 1978, Stephen M. Larson and John W. Fountain realised that the 1966 observations were best explained by two distinct objects (Janus and Epimetheus) sharing very similar orbits.[12] This was confirmed in 1980 by Voyager 1,[13] and so Larson and Fountain officially share the discovery of Epimetheus with Walker.[7] A moon that was probably Epimetheus appeared in two Pioneer 11 images and was designated S/1979S1, there is uncertainty though because the two images were not enough to allow a reliable orbit to be calculated.[14]Epimetheus received its name in 1983.[b] The name Janus was approved by the IAU at the same time, although the name had been used informally since Dollfus proposed it shortly after the 1966 discovery.[7]Epimetheus (lower left) and Janus (right) seen on 20 March 2006, two months after swapping orbits. The two moons appear close only because of foreshortening; in reality, Janus is about 40,000 km farther from Cassini than Epimetheus.Rotating-frame depiction of the horseshoe orbits of Janus and EpimetheusAnimation of Epimetheus's orbit – Rotating reference frame Saturn · Janus · EpimetheusEpimetheus's orbit is co-orbital with that of Janus. Janus's mean orbital radius from Saturn is, as of 2006 (as shown by the green color in the adjacent picture), only 50 km less than that of Epimetheus, a distance smaller than either moon's mean radius. In accordance with Kepler's laws of planetary motion, the closer orbit is completed more quickly. Because of the small difference, it is completed in only about 30 seconds less. Each day, the inner moon is an additional 0.25° farther around Saturn than the outer moon. As the inner moon catches up to the outer moon, their mutual gravitational attraction increases the inner moon's momentum and decreases that of the outer moon. This added momentum means that the inner moon's distance from. China's New Moon Discovery Leaves the U.S. Stunned and Rewrites History - China's New Moon Discovery Leaves the U.S. Stunned and Rewrites History by Voyager 91 China has recently confirmed a major Moon discovery that will assist humans on developing a permanent presence on the Moon.China's Weird Moon Discovery Baffles Scientists - YouTube
The colonization of the Moon is a process[1] or concept employed by some proposals for robotic[2][3] or human exploitation and settlement endeavours on the Moon. Often used as a synonym for its more specific element of settling the Moon (the establishing and expanding of lunar habitation), lunar or space colonization as a whole has become contested for perpetuating colonialism and its exploitive logic in space.[4]NASA concept art of an envisioned lunar mining facilityLaying claim to the Moon has been declared illegal through international space law and no state has made such claims,[5] despite having a range of probes and artificial remains on the Moon.While a range of proposals for missions of lunar colonization, exploitation or permanent exploration have been raised, current projects for establishing permanent crewed presence on the Moon are not for colonizing the Moon, but rather focus on building moonbases for exploration and to a lesser extent for exploitation of lunar resources.The commercialization of the Moon is a contentious issue for national and international lunar regulation and laws (such as the Moon treaty).[6]Colonization of the Moon has been imagined as early as the first half of the 17th century by John Wilkins in A Discourse Concerning a New Planet.[7][8]In the early Space Age the USSR and the US engaged in dropping pennants[9] and raising flags on the Moon, like this Lunar Flag Assembly of 1969, but agreed internationally in 1967 with the Outer Space Treaty to not lay any claims over the Moon or any other celestial bodies.Colonization of the Moon as a material process has been taking place since the first artificial objects reached the Moon after 1959. Luna landers scattered pennants of the Soviet Union on the Moon, and U.S. flags were symbolically planted at their landing sites by the Apollo astronauts, but no nation claims ownership of any part of the Moon's surface.[10] Russia, China, India, and the U.S. are party to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty,[11] which defines the Moon and all outer space as the "province of all mankind",[10] restricting the use of the Moon to peaceful purposes and explicitly banning military installations and weapons of mass destruction from the Moon.[12]The landing of U.S. astronauts was seen as a precedent for the superiority of the free-market socioeconomic model of the U.S., and in this case as the successful model for space flight, exploration and ultimately human presence in the form of colonization. In the 1970s the word and goal of colonization was discouraged by NASA and funds as well as focus shifted away from the Moon and particularly to Mars. But the U.S. eventually nevertheless opposed the 1979 Moon Agreement which aimed to restrict the exploitation of the Moon and its resources. Subsequently, the treaty has been signed and ratified by only 18 nations, as of January 2020,[13] none of which engage in self-launched human space exploration.After U.S. missions in the 1990s suggested the presence of lunar water ice, its actual discovery in the soil at the lunar poles by Chandrayaan-1 (ISRO) inChina moon samples reveal water molecules in groundbreaking discovery
China has discovered a crystal from the Moon made of a previously unknown mineral, while also confirming that the lunar surface contains a key ingredient for nuclear fusion, a potential form of effectively limitless power that harnesses the same forces that fuel the Sun and other stars.The crystal is part of a batch of lunar samples collected by China’s Chang’e-5 mission, which landed on the Moon in 2020, loaded up with about four pounds of rocks, and delivered them to Earth days later. After carefully sifting through the samples—which are the first Moon rocks returned to Earth since 1976—scientists at the Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology spotted a single crystal particle, with a diameter smaller than the width of a human hair. Videos by VICE The crystal is made of the novel mineral Changesite—(Y), named after the Chinese Moon goddess, Chang’e, that also inspired China’s series of lunar missions. It was confirmed as a new mineral on Friday by the Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification (CNMNC) of the International Mineralogical Association (IMA), according to the Chinese state-run publication Global Times.Changesite—(Y) is the sixth new mineral to be identified in Moon samples, and the first to be discovered by China. Before China, only the U.S. and Russia could claim to have discovered a new Moon mineral. It is a transparent crystal that formed in a region of the northern lunar near-face that was volcanically active about 1.2 billion years ago.A new mineral, Changesite-(Y), was discovered from the moon samples retrieved by #China's Chang'e-5 probe, making China the third country to discover a new mineral on moon, China Atomic Energy Authority said on Friday. pic.twitter.com/gieIWN8SMg— People's Daily, China (@PDChina) September 9, 2022According to state media, the new lunar samples also contain helium-3, a version of the element helium that has long fascinated scientists—and science fiction creators—because of its potential as a nuclear fusion fuel source. This hypothetical form of power aims to harness energy released by atoms that merge under tremendous pressures, such as those in the interiors of stars. Starlight is a ubiquitous product of nuclear fusion, but human-made fusion reactors will still likely take decades to develop, assuming they are feasible at all.Sign up for Motherboard’s daily newsletter for a regular dose of our original reporting, plus behind-the-scenes content about our biggest stories.That said, if these reactors do become a reality, helium-3 would be a good fuel candidate because it produces less radioactive byproducts and nuclear waste compared to other atoms. Whereas helium-3 is incredibly scarce on Earth, it is abundant on the Moon, a disparity that has stoked dreams of mining the material on the lunar surface.Along those lines, China has joined the United States, andChina confirms major Moon discovery that'll help humans
The 20th ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining. 2014, 1935–1944 Google Scholar Nelson W B. Applied Life Data Analysis. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2005Chapelle O. Modeling delayed feedback in display advertising. In: Proceedings of the 20th ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Aining. 2014, 1097–1105 Google Scholar Wang J, Zhang Y. Opportunity model for e-commerce recommendation: right product; right time. In: Proceedings of the 36th International ACMSIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval. 2013, 303–312 Google Scholar Wang J, Zhang Y, Posse C, Bhasin A. Is it time for a career switch? In: Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on World Wide Web. 2013, 1377–1388Richards S J. A handbook of parametric survival models for actuarial use. Scandinavian Actuarial Journal, 2012, 2012(4): 233–257Article MathSciNet MATH Google Scholar Murphy K P. Machine Learning: A Probabilistic Perspective. Cambridge, Massathusetts: The MIT press, 2012Barbieri N, Manco G. An analysis of probabilistic methods for top-n recommendation in collaborative filtering. In: Proceedings of Joint European Conference on Machine Learning and Knowledge Discovery in Databases. 2011, 172–187Chapter Google Scholar Download referencesAcknowledgementsThis work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Grant Nos. 61472141, 61532021 and 61021004), Shanghai Knowledge Service Platform Project (ZF1213) and Shanghai Leading Academic Discipline Project (B412).Author informationAuthors and AffiliationsShanghai Key Laboratory of Trustworthy Computing, Institute for Data Science and Engineering, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, ChinaWendi Ji & Xiaoling WangSchool of Information Systems, Singapore Management University, Singapore, 188065, SingaporeFeida ZhuAuthorsWendi JiYou can also search for this author in PubMed Google ScholarXiaoling WangYou can also search for this author in PubMed Google ScholarFeida ZhuYou can also search for this author in PubMed Google ScholarCorresponding authorCorrespondence to Xiaoling Wang.Additional informationWendi Ji is currently working toward the doctoral degree in the Software Engineering Institute at East China Normal University, China. Her research interests mainly include user behavior analysis and data mining.Xiaoling Wang received the bachelor master and doctoral degrees from Southeastern University, China in 1997, 2000, and 2003, respectively. She is currently a professor, and the vice dean in Software Engineering Institute,China's Lander Helps Scientists Make Major Discovery On The Moon
Space We haven’t been able to take a close-up look at the far side of the moon until now, and the discoveries being made by the Yutu-2 rover might prove important for future missions Facebook / Meta Twitter / X icon Linkedin Reddit Email A photo of the Yutu-2 moon rover, taken by the Chang’e-4 lunar probeAFPThe first rover to visit the far side of the moon, China’s Yutu-2, has found stark differences between there and the near side. These include stickier, more supportive soil on the far side and a greater abundance of small rocks and impact craters.Despite several exploratory missions to the moon, crewed and uncrewed, the moon’s far side has remained unexplored because of difficulties communicating with Earth from there. But in 2019, China’s Chang’e 4 mission deposited the Yutu-2 rover to roam the far side’s surface.Now, Liang Ding at the Harbin Institute of Technology, China, and his colleagues have deduced something of the make-up and features of the far-side soil based on the way Yutu-2 has trundled around and on the observations it made using radar and spectrometry.The researchers, who declined to be interviewed for this article, found that the rover didn’t slip and skid as much as it would have been expected to do on the moon’s near side, indicating that the far side was relatively flat. The soil also appeared to readily stick to the rover’s six wheels, which means it is probably more consolidated and supportive.Explore what is beyond our planet and how we travel there:On a New Scientist Discovery TourAs well as being useful for designing future lunar rovers, understanding the soil make-up and rock distribution can tell us about the history of the lunar surface itself.“Finding a larger proportion of small rocks is probably linked with the age of the surface,” says Lionel Wilson at Lancaster University, UK. “You’ve worn down the larger rocks. If you wait long enough, you’ll reduce a rock just to several millimetre-sized particles.”The Yutu-2 rover also found a dark greenish, glistening material at the bottom of one crater, similar to glassy materials found in Apollo mission samples. This is the first time that one of these minerals, probably a remnant of a previous impact, has been found in-situ on the moon.“Any information on the history of bombardment, at all scales, from large impactors all the way down to the atomic scale, is really important and valuable,” says Wilson.The lunar far side is also relatively electromagnetically quiet because it blocks out Earth’s transmissions, making it well suited for astronomy. Building any observatories there will require a deep knowledge of the soil make-up and surface of the lunar far side, which could be explored in future missions.“The exploration. China's New Moon Discovery Leaves the U.S. Stunned and Rewrites History - China's New Moon Discovery Leaves the U.S. Stunned and Rewrites History by Voyager 91 China has recently confirmed a major Moon discovery that will assist humans on developing a permanent presence on the Moon.
China Moon: Latest News, Photos, Videos on China Moon
Space Agency’s Lunar Pathfinder relay satellite into lunar orbit.Once scheduled to prospect for lunar ice aboard the VIPER lunar rover, the Honeybee Robotics TRIDENT ice drill will now only operate from the fixed landing site of the Intuitive Machines IM-2 mission. Credit: Honeybee RoboticsThe Moon goes globalIn addition to the NASA-subsidized commercialization of the Moon, lunar exploration has become a truly international endeavor. As of late 2024, the international fraternity of lunar efforts includes Russia, the U.S., Japan, the European Space Agency (representing 22 European countries), China, India, Luxembourg, Israel, South Korea, Italy, United Arab Emirates, Mexico, and Pakistan.In 2025, Canada’s Jeremy Hansen will fly on Artemis 2, becoming the first non-American to go to the Moon. Two astronauts from the European Space Agency (ESA) and two from Japan will be chosen for lunar flights, possibly as early as Artemis 4 or 5. And in an agreement with the UAE, the first Emirati to travel to the Moon will fly aboard an Artemis mission early in the next decade.Shackleton Crater lies in the crucial south pole region and much of its floor is permanently shadowed. The image reveals what lies in the shadowed region thanks to data collected by a NASA-built camera called ShadowCam, mounted to South Korea’s first lunar orbiter, named Danuri (Enjoy the Moon). The image is a composite; the region surrounding the crater’s interior is data taken from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Credit: Mosaic created by LROC (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) and ShadowCam teams with images provided by NASA/KARI/ASUChina has made amazing strides in robotic lunar exploration. In 2013, it became the third nation to deploy a lunar rover with the Chang’e 3 mission. Chang’e 4 in 2018 became the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon’s farside. And with Chang’e 5 in 2020 and Chang’e 6 in May 2024, China returned samples from the near and far sides of the Moon, respectively, with the latter feat being another world first.Historically, when China announces ambitious space plans, they become reality. There is no reason to doubt China’s stated intention to land astronauts on the MoonChina and the Moon - SpaceWatch.Global
Hong Kong CNN — China’s Chang’e-6 lunar lander successfully touched down on the far side of the moon Sunday morning Beijing time, in a significant step for the ambitious mission that could advance the country’s aspirations of putting astronauts on the moon. The Chang’e-6 probe landed in the South Pole-Aitken Basin, where it will begin to collect samples from the lunar surface, the China National Space Administration announced. China’s most complex robotic lunar endeavor to date, the uncrewed mission aims to return samples to Earth from the moon’s far side for the first time. The landing marks the second time a mission has successfully reached the far side of the moon. China first completed that historic feat in 2019 with its Chang’e-4 probe. If all goes as planned, the mission — which began on May 3 and is expected to last 53 days — could be a key milestone in China’s push to become a dominant space power. The country’s plans include landing astronauts on the moon by 2030 and building a research base at its south pole – a region believed to contain water ice. Sunday’s landing comes as a growing number of countries, including the United States, eye the strategic and scientific benefits of expanded lunar exploration in an increasingly competitive field. Samples collected by the Chang’e-6 lander could provide key clues into the origin and evolution of the moon, Earth and the solar system, experts say – while the mission itself provides important data and technical practice. China's New Moon Discovery Leaves the U.S. Stunned and Rewrites History - China's New Moon Discovery Leaves the U.S. Stunned and Rewrites History by Voyager 91China Discovery - Leading China Travel Agency with Reviews
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BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese scientists have discovered a "brand-new method" of producing large quantities of water using lunar soil brought back from a 2020 expedition, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Thursday.In 2020, China's Chang'e-5 mission marked the first time humans retrieved lunar samples in 44 years. Researchers from the state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences discovered that the minerals in this 'moon soil' contain large amounts of hydrogen, which reacts with other elements when heated to very high temperatures, producing water vapour, CCTV reported."After three years of in-depth research and repeated verification, a brand-new method of using lunar soil to produce large amounts of water was discovered, which is expected to provide important design basis for the construction of future lunar scientific research stations and space stations," said CCTV.The discovery could have important implications for China's decades-long project of building a permanent lunar outpost amid a U.S.-China race to find and mine the moon's resources.NASA head Bill Nelson has repeatedly raised the alarm about the rapid advances in China's space programme and the possibility of Beijing dominating the most resource-rich locations on the moon.Using the new method, one tonne of lunar soil will be able to produce about 51-76 kg of water, equivalent to more than a hundred 500ml bottles of water, or the daily drinking water consumption of 50 people, the state broadcaster said.China hopes that recent and future lunar expeditions will set the foundations to build the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), an initiative it is co-leading with Russia.China's space agency has set 2035 as the date by when a "basic station" on the moon's south pole will be built, with a moon-orbiting space station added by 2045.The announcement of the discovery comes at a time when Chinese scientists are already conducting experiments on lunar samples brought back in June by the Chang'e-6 mission.While the Chang'e-5 mission brought back samples from the near side of the moon, Chang'e-6 retrieved lunar soil from the far side of the moon, which perpetually faces away from the Earth.The importance of lunar water goes beyond making permanent human presence viable. NASA's Nelson told
2025-03-28It also found that there were a lot more holes on its backside, too. Sticky IckyLess than a week after it uncovered the hilariously anticlimactic origins of the "Moon Cube", China’s announcing a new discovery from its lunar rover: the backside of the Moon is surprisingly sticky.Chinese researchers published a paper this week in Science Robotics that revealed new data about the lunar surface gathered by the Yutu-2 rover. The takeaway? The lunar regolith — soil, basically — on the Moon’s far side, which always faces away from the Earth, is stickier than the soil on the visible near side. The team reached the finding after noticing that chunks of lunar soil kept sticking to the rover’s wheels. They believe this might be because the surface on the far side "resembles dry sand and sandy loam on Earth," according to the paper. Holier Than ThouThe researchers also discovered that the far side had a lot of relatively small craters. The report included data gathered from 88 craters, with 57 measuring less than 33 feet in diameter and two craters measuring roughly 200 feet in diameter. At the same time, the far side of the Moon features many more craters than the near side. That's likely due to a number of factors, including that the Earth helps shield the lunar surface from certain impacts. Also, the nearside appears to have had a lot more volcanic activity in its past that got rid of many craters. In fact, China’s recent Chang’e-5 mission uncovered relatively recent volcanic activity on the lunar surface — although it still occurred roughly two billion years ago. It’s undoubtedly awesome that lunar missions are still uncovering new and surprising data about the Moon — mysterious cube shaped objects aside. It only creates even more hype for future exploration like NASA's Artemis missions.READ MORE: The Moon’s Far Side Is Covered in Sticky Soil and Fresh Craters [Gizmodo]More on the Moon: Remember the “Moon Cube”? China Just Published a New Photo and Uhhhhh
2025-04-11The colonization of the Moon is a process[1] or concept employed by some proposals for robotic[2][3] or human exploitation and settlement endeavours on the Moon. Often used as a synonym for its more specific element of settling the Moon (the establishing and expanding of lunar habitation), lunar or space colonization as a whole has become contested for perpetuating colonialism and its exploitive logic in space.[4]NASA concept art of an envisioned lunar mining facilityLaying claim to the Moon has been declared illegal through international space law and no state has made such claims,[5] despite having a range of probes and artificial remains on the Moon.While a range of proposals for missions of lunar colonization, exploitation or permanent exploration have been raised, current projects for establishing permanent crewed presence on the Moon are not for colonizing the Moon, but rather focus on building moonbases for exploration and to a lesser extent for exploitation of lunar resources.The commercialization of the Moon is a contentious issue for national and international lunar regulation and laws (such as the Moon treaty).[6]Colonization of the Moon has been imagined as early as the first half of the 17th century by John Wilkins in A Discourse Concerning a New Planet.[7][8]In the early Space Age the USSR and the US engaged in dropping pennants[9] and raising flags on the Moon, like this Lunar Flag Assembly of 1969, but agreed internationally in 1967 with the Outer Space Treaty to not lay any claims over the Moon or any other celestial bodies.Colonization of the Moon as a material process has been taking place since the first artificial objects reached the Moon after 1959. Luna landers scattered pennants of the Soviet Union on the Moon, and U.S. flags were symbolically planted at their landing sites by the Apollo astronauts, but no nation claims ownership of any part of the Moon's surface.[10] Russia, China, India, and the U.S. are party to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty,[11] which defines the Moon and all outer space as the "province of all mankind",[10] restricting the use of the Moon to peaceful purposes and explicitly banning military installations and weapons of mass destruction from the Moon.[12]The landing of U.S. astronauts was seen as a precedent for the superiority of the free-market socioeconomic model of the U.S., and in this case as the successful model for space flight, exploration and ultimately human presence in the form of colonization. In the 1970s the word and goal of colonization was discouraged by NASA and funds as well as focus shifted away from the Moon and particularly to Mars. But the U.S. eventually nevertheless opposed the 1979 Moon Agreement which aimed to restrict the exploitation of the Moon and its resources. Subsequently, the treaty has been signed and ratified by only 18 nations, as of January 2020,[13] none of which engage in self-launched human space exploration.After U.S. missions in the 1990s suggested the presence of lunar water ice, its actual discovery in the soil at the lunar poles by Chandrayaan-1 (ISRO) in
2025-04-20China has discovered a crystal from the Moon made of a previously unknown mineral, while also confirming that the lunar surface contains a key ingredient for nuclear fusion, a potential form of effectively limitless power that harnesses the same forces that fuel the Sun and other stars.The crystal is part of a batch of lunar samples collected by China’s Chang’e-5 mission, which landed on the Moon in 2020, loaded up with about four pounds of rocks, and delivered them to Earth days later. After carefully sifting through the samples—which are the first Moon rocks returned to Earth since 1976—scientists at the Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology spotted a single crystal particle, with a diameter smaller than the width of a human hair. Videos by VICE The crystal is made of the novel mineral Changesite—(Y), named after the Chinese Moon goddess, Chang’e, that also inspired China’s series of lunar missions. It was confirmed as a new mineral on Friday by the Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification (CNMNC) of the International Mineralogical Association (IMA), according to the Chinese state-run publication Global Times.Changesite—(Y) is the sixth new mineral to be identified in Moon samples, and the first to be discovered by China. Before China, only the U.S. and Russia could claim to have discovered a new Moon mineral. It is a transparent crystal that formed in a region of the northern lunar near-face that was volcanically active about 1.2 billion years ago.A new mineral, Changesite-(Y), was discovered from the moon samples retrieved by #China's Chang'e-5 probe, making China the third country to discover a new mineral on moon, China Atomic Energy Authority said on Friday. pic.twitter.com/gieIWN8SMg— People's Daily, China (@PDChina) September 9, 2022According to state media, the new lunar samples also contain helium-3, a version of the element helium that has long fascinated scientists—and science fiction creators—because of its potential as a nuclear fusion fuel source. This hypothetical form of power aims to harness energy released by atoms that merge under tremendous pressures, such as those in the interiors of stars. Starlight is a ubiquitous product of nuclear fusion, but human-made fusion reactors will still likely take decades to develop, assuming they are feasible at all.Sign up for Motherboard’s daily newsletter for a regular dose of our original reporting, plus behind-the-scenes content about our biggest stories.That said, if these reactors do become a reality, helium-3 would be a good fuel candidate because it produces less radioactive byproducts and nuclear waste compared to other atoms. Whereas helium-3 is incredibly scarce on Earth, it is abundant on the Moon, a disparity that has stoked dreams of mining the material on the lunar surface.Along those lines, China has joined the United States, and
2025-04-11Space We haven’t been able to take a close-up look at the far side of the moon until now, and the discoveries being made by the Yutu-2 rover might prove important for future missions Facebook / Meta Twitter / X icon Linkedin Reddit Email A photo of the Yutu-2 moon rover, taken by the Chang’e-4 lunar probeAFPThe first rover to visit the far side of the moon, China’s Yutu-2, has found stark differences between there and the near side. These include stickier, more supportive soil on the far side and a greater abundance of small rocks and impact craters.Despite several exploratory missions to the moon, crewed and uncrewed, the moon’s far side has remained unexplored because of difficulties communicating with Earth from there. But in 2019, China’s Chang’e 4 mission deposited the Yutu-2 rover to roam the far side’s surface.Now, Liang Ding at the Harbin Institute of Technology, China, and his colleagues have deduced something of the make-up and features of the far-side soil based on the way Yutu-2 has trundled around and on the observations it made using radar and spectrometry.The researchers, who declined to be interviewed for this article, found that the rover didn’t slip and skid as much as it would have been expected to do on the moon’s near side, indicating that the far side was relatively flat. The soil also appeared to readily stick to the rover’s six wheels, which means it is probably more consolidated and supportive.Explore what is beyond our planet and how we travel there:On a New Scientist Discovery TourAs well as being useful for designing future lunar rovers, understanding the soil make-up and rock distribution can tell us about the history of the lunar surface itself.“Finding a larger proportion of small rocks is probably linked with the age of the surface,” says Lionel Wilson at Lancaster University, UK. “You’ve worn down the larger rocks. If you wait long enough, you’ll reduce a rock just to several millimetre-sized particles.”The Yutu-2 rover also found a dark greenish, glistening material at the bottom of one crater, similar to glassy materials found in Apollo mission samples. This is the first time that one of these minerals, probably a remnant of a previous impact, has been found in-situ on the moon.“Any information on the history of bombardment, at all scales, from large impactors all the way down to the atomic scale, is really important and valuable,” says Wilson.The lunar far side is also relatively electromagnetically quiet because it blocks out Earth’s transmissions, making it well suited for astronomy. Building any observatories there will require a deep knowledge of the soil make-up and surface of the lunar far side, which could be explored in future missions.“The exploration
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